


of promises, for once, unbroken

by verecundiam



Series: kept promises [6]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I hate the way this is written so much, but I think y’all deserve some good found family content after the last fic lol, some violence and injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29756871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verecundiam/pseuds/verecundiam
Summary: “Dream?”“Yeah?”“Are you...” Sapnap hesitates. “Are we gonna stick together?”(aka: a story of promises that are broken, promises that are kept, and promises that are never made but are kept anyway.)(I highly recommend reading at least the first fic inkept promisesfor context. While this does technically work as a stand-alone, it doesn’t stand very well, lol, and I make a lot of references to other events in the series)
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: kept promises [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2039066
Comments: 19
Kudos: 88





	of promises, for once, unbroken

**Author's Note:**

> I’m just gonna ignore that bad is canonically sapnap’s dad now and sit in my little found family brothers corner and just. keep on writing this series 
> 
> anyway it’s called kept promises so it’s time to actually write more of the promises !!! so have this Dream and Sapnap content bc I love them a lot and canon just keeps on making me sad. it’s my pandemic I get to choose the coping mechanism. sometimes that coping mechanism is block men brothers I guess
> 
> this isn’t as well-written as the others but,,, fluff,,,, so have it anyway !!!

They are seven and nine, and if Dream’s count since they ran away _(escaped,_ his mind supplies. You didn’t run away, you _escaped)_ is right, he and Sapnap have been on their own for nearly a month. 

“Come on,” Dream encourages, reaching his hand out as far as he can. His knees dig into the tree branch he’s sitting on, and he carefully shifts so that the fabric won’t tear on the bark. They don’t have a sewing kit, after all, and neither of them know the first thing about sewing anyway.

“But I’m gonna fall,” Sapnap shouts up at him. 

He hasn’t fallen yet—Dream’s made sure of it—but Sapnap still has a lingering terror of climbing up trees, especially when he’s trying on his own. 

“No you won’t, stupid,” Dream rolls his eyes. “Just come up. It’s gonna be dark soon.” 

“But I can’t!” Sapnap insists. “I’m not all—” he waves his arms incomprehensibly “—like you are.

“What does—” Dream waves his arms in an approximation of Sapnap’s motions “—mean?” 

Sapnap thinks for a moment. “Squirrely,” he finally decides. “I’m not all squirrely like you are.” 

“I’m not a squirrel!” Dream tries to sound offended, but he laughs in the middle of it. 

“Yes! Yes you are! You so are,” Sapnap cackles. “You climb trees all crazy and you sleep in them and like to hang off of them _and_ you scrunch up your face like one.”

“Do not!”

“Do too!”

“Well at least this squirrel isn’t gonna get chomped by a zombie!” Dream sticks his tongue out at Sapnap, still firmly on the ground. 

“I’ll just—I’ll just fight the zombies, then!” Sapnap brandishes his sharpened stick—wobbly and uneven, because it’s the first one that he sharpened himself, but effective enough. The problem is that Sapnap is still just—so small, and his boots are still too big, and he’s never faced worse than a spider before. 

“All night? You sure?” Dream asks, instead of voicing his worry. That’ll just make Sapnap panic, and the last thing he needs is for Sapnap to panic. What he needs is for Sapnap to climb up, so they can both be safe. 

“Yeah!”

“Oookay,” Dream flips around so he’s hanging on the branch upside-down from his legs. “But I’m gonna be all nice and safe and warm up here, while you’re fighting zombies and skeletons and spiders aaaallllllllll night, aaallllllll by yourself.”

“So?” Sapnap challenges, but he gives the shadows around the forest a nervous glance. 

“So I think it would be a whole lot better if you just climbed up here with me.”

“But Dream—” Sapnap hesitates. 

“C’mon.” Dream flips back up. “I’ll grab you, see? So even if you lose your grip, I’ll just catch you.”

“Promise?”

“I’ll catch you.”

“But do you promise?”

“You don’t need me to promise. I’m just so cool that I’ll catch you no matter what.” 

“You’re not cool,” Sapnap scoffs. 

“I’m up in this tree and you’re not,” Dream smirks. 

“I—”

“Uh oh, Sapnap’s not cool unless he’s in the tree with me,” Dream taunts. He feels a little bad for it, he really does, but it’s getting darker and he’s—he’s anxious, alright. Any second now, an arrow’s going to come flying out of the woods at Sapnap’s chest, or a zombie’s going to come to claw him apart, or a creeper’s going to explode behind him and it’ll take too long for Dream to get down to help and Sapnap’ll be vaporized to nothing or bleeding to death—

—And he’s running and leaping for the tree, and on sheer instinct Dream catches his hands before Sapnap can tumble back down to the grass below. 

“That’s not how you climb a tree, dumbo,” Dream laughs, breathlessly, pulling Sapnap up the rest of the way and taking them up to some higher, safer branches. It’s fully dark by the time they’re settled. 

“You did it!” Sapnap grins, dark eyes shining. “You caught me!” 

“I—well—yeah,” Dream stutters. “‘Course I did.” 

“And now I’m not gonna get chomped,” Sapnap giggles—out of relief or actually thinking it’s funny, Dream can’t tell. Maybe both. 

“No panda meat for the zombies tonight. Bet they’re so mad.”

Sapnap giggles again. “I’m a zombie deli—del—uh—delicious-y,” he declares, settling against Dream’s side. 

“I don’t think that’s the right word.” 

“Oh yeah? Then what is?”

“Um. Well I know it’s not delicious-y, that’s for sure.” 

“You don’t even know! Ha! How do you know I’m wrong then, hmmm?” 

“I just do! Delicious-y isn’t the right word, it’s not even a real one!”

“You don’t have a dictionary, you don’t know.”

Dream groans. “Go to sleep.”

“That means I win,” Sapnap sings. 

“Sleep.”

“What if I’m not tired?” 

“Sleep anyway.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” 

Sapnap hesitates. “Could you do another story?”

“Sure.”

“Another star one? ‘Cause they’re really bright right here and, and, and it’s really nice and stuff.”

“Yeah, I can.”

“‘Kay.” 

\------------

“Dream?” 

They’re sitting in another tree. This one’s taller, older, so Dream had helped Sapnap climb it. 

“Yeah?”

Dream glances over to him. Sapnap refuses to look up, determined to keep his eyes downcast, watching the shadows on the grass below. But his voice has gone quiet, like it does when he’s scared, in the way that always makes Dream nervous.

“Are you...” Sapnap hesitates. “Are we gonna stick together?”

“‘Course we are—“ Dream starts. 

“Even if we find another town or something? Or, or a city, or a job, or anything—“

“Yes,” Dream says, trying to infuse as much sincerity and determination into his face and voice as he can. They will. They _will_ stay together. 

“Promise?” Sapnap asks, in a near-whisper. 

“I—no,” Dream looks away, like it’s an admission of some kind of defeat—but it isn’t. It _isn’t_. So he forces himself to turn back to Sapnap. 

“Oh.” 

“Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna do it, though. We’re still always sticking together.”

Sapnap looks up at him, sudden and hopeful, and Dream doesn’t like the way his chest tightens with every expression on Sapnap’s face. Hates that he’d do anything to keep him from looking like he did when Dream first found him, all quiet whispers and sad eyes and too-big boots. 

It’s just—

_(I promise we’ll be right back.)_

_(I promise I’ll wait for you.)_

“Promises are just stupid. So I don’t promise. But it’ll always be you and me, okay?” 

“‘Kay.” 

Dream looks at him for a long time, but... that seems to be enough for Sapnap, who dangles his feet from the tree branch and laughs at the shadow-puppets Dream starts to make with his hands from the sunlight shining above, and curls into Dream’s side like he always does when the light starts to dim and the groans and clatters of mobs rise from the darkest crevices of the forest. And they’re okay. They’re okay.

\------------

“You’re my best friend,” Sapnap says. “That’s a pinky-promise!” 

They’re walking across a small stretch of plains, heading to the spruce forest a bit away, mountains rising in the far distance. Dream doesn’t much like the plains, Sapnap can tell—there’s nothing for them to climb up or hide in, so he’s all twitchy. 

See, he’d read about best friends and pinky promises in stories, before everything went wrong and bad, before it was all empty benches and sharp-edged memories. So he knows that best friends are the bestest of friends you can be, and pinky-promises are the most unbreakable of promises. (Bet that’s why they still left. They didn’t pinky-promise to come back, they just normal-promised.) 

“What?” Dream scrunches up his face in the way that he always says he doesn’t. “What’s a pinky-promise?” 

Sapnap gasps, overdramatically, just to see Dream roll his eyes. “Pinky-promises are the best kind of promise! See, see, you do this—” Sapnap holds out his pinky finger and waits for Dream to do the same, hesitant and more than a little suspicious. “And then this!” He links his pinky finger with Dream’s. 

“And it does… what?”

“It makes the promise super special!” Sapnap grins. “So see, I pinky-promise you’re my best friend. Now it’ll last forever. ‘Cause it’s not a normal promise, it’s a pinky one.” 

“Are you sure this makes it special?” Dream looks at him, all serious green eyes and furrowed brows.

“Very sure.”

“Okay…” Dream links his pinky finger with Sapnap’s. “You’re my best friend too.” 

He doesn’t say the rest of the words, but Sapnap knows they’re there anyway. He cheers and lets Dream mess up his hair and makes sure to say something silly so that Dream will laugh in his good laugh, the wheezy, breathless one. And Sapnap smiles up at him, because he for sure has a best friend now, and because Dream says there’ll be berries up ahead if they walk for a bit more. Maybe even rabbits! 

\------------

“Will you stay if I do?”

Sapnap and Dream have tucked themselves away in the ruins, up in one of the old towers, kicking their feet against the crumbling stone. Bad would have a fit if he knew they were up here. It’d be kind of a dangerous fall. 

Bad had asked if they wanted to stay. And the thing is—

The thing is, Sapnap wants to stay. But Dream—he’s hurt, and he’s scared, and Sapnap can just tell that he wants to run. But it’ll never get better if that’s all they do, he’s sure of it, and Bad is nice and good and calls them ‘muffins’ and is gonna teach them how to fight and he won’t hurt them. He promised it. 

“I said we’d stick together, right?” 

Bandages are wrapped around Dream’s face, wound over his entire head. Only one of his eyes is visible at all, and his sandy hair tufts at the top, sticking up in awkward fluffs. It’d be funny if Sapnap couldn’t still see spots of blood through the bandages. 

Those claws had been meant for Sapnap’s throat. Sapnap should be the one bleeding. He should be dead, really. Instead, Dream’s sitting next to him with his face wound in cloth spotted with crimson to cover deep gouges and thin gashes, because the clumsy bandages were the best that Bad could do, and Sapnap just has splinters in his hands and scraped-up knees. 

But if they’re in the ruins—walls and walls and towers, warm campfires and food and water and a shadow with white eyes and an outstretched hand—they’re safe. They’re safe and it won’t happen again, not like this. Not while they’re small and clumsy and have sticks for swords and rocks for arrows. 

“Promise?” Sapnap asks, knowing what the answer will be but pleading anyway. 

Dream shakes his head. 

“Just—I’ll stay if you stay. You know I will.” 

Sapnap leans his head into Dream’s shoulder. “Just making sure.”

“I will,” Dream says. “I really will.” 

\------------

“Is it helping?” Sapnap asks. 

“Hm?” Dream looks up from where he’s shaping wood for a new hatchet. He broke his last one sparring with Bad. He still can’t beat him, but he’s getting close. 

“The—the mask. Is it—y’know—helping?” 

Dream nods, making sure the motion is deliberate. He’s trying to get used to using his head and shoulders more, since he keeps forgetting that no one can see his eyes. “Yeah.”

“That’s good.” 

“It was—it was nice of Bad to get it.”

“And even nicer of me to make it look cool,” Sapnap grins, poking one of the black eyes of the mask.

“Oh, sure, cool. I think little kids are gonna run screaming from me now, actually.”

“And so will all your enemies!” Sapnap brandishes his wooden sword above his head. 

“They don’t stand a chance against my creepy smiley face!” 

“Yeah!” Sapnap giggles. And then he sobers, suddenly, scooting closer to where Dream’s sitting at the crafting table. “You aren’t gonna fool me, though. You know that, right?”

“I—don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dream stutters.

“I’m not stupid,” Sapnap rolls his eyes. “The mask. You can fool everyone else as much as you want, but it’ll never work with me.” 

“What makes you so sure?” Dream challenges. Sapnap’s right—of course he is—but the new mask is… it’s his hiding place when he’s exposed, and it’s his shield when he’s unarmed. It’s protection. Protection he wishes he had when he was younger and lonelier, the ghost of a child in a village that didn’t care. 

Sapnap doesn’t even say anything—just holds out his pinky finger and grins. 

Dream stares at him, blankly, for longer than he should—then sighs, and links his pinky finger with Sapnap’s.

\------------

Bad comes back from hunting—marginally successful, he’s got steak, at least—to find Sapnap and Dream whispering in one of the far corners of the ruins, near what probably would have been outer walls. Dream’s mask is slid up to sit on top of his head, and Sapnap fiddling with the ends of his headband, almost nervously. 

Dream looks up suddenly, and calls “Bad!” 

Sapnap whips his head around to see that Bad has come back, and gasps. “Bad! Bad! Come over here!”

“I can’t, I’ve gotta get this taken care of,” Bad hefts the raw steak off of his shoulder, “and my axe is getting low, I have to—“

“But Baaaaaad,” Sapnap groans, and dramatically flops on the ground. “You gotta.” 

“Sorry Bad, you gotta,” Dream grins. 

“You’re not sorry,” Bad tries to scoff, but he ends up laughing. “What is it?”

“You gotta come over here to find out,” Sapnap says, popping up from the ground with grass in his hair and a lopsided headband. 

“What’s so special about the corner? Oh gosh, is it a bug?” 

“It might be,” Dream smirks, and Sapnap hits his shoulder, muttering “Stop it!” through gritted teeth. 

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” Bad makes his way over, hopping over low walls and fallen stone, eventually sitting down in the grass beside them. “What’s up?”

“So,” Sapnap begins. “Dream and I were thinking.”

“Always a bad sign.” 

“Shh! Shut!” Sapnap exclaims, at the same time that Dream rolls his eyes and mutters “Shut up.” 

“Sorry, sorry, continue,” Bad waves, smiling. 

“So. We have—”

_“You_ have,” Dream interrupts. 

_“We_ have a very important question for you,” Sapnap elbows Dream in the ribs. 

“Uh… sure, what?”

“Okay. So. Um. So—it’s hard to explain. The question is—No matter what like, no matter what happens. Whether it’s crazy stuff, or something happens, just… no matter what. Will you—um—will you stay with us?”

Sapnap looks up at him, not quite pleading, but… anxious. Nervous, like he doesn’t know what answer Bad would give, every single time. Dream is looking off to the side—his expression resigned, his face cast in shadow by the mask on top of his head. 

Bad can’t help but reach for both of their hands. 

“Oh,” he says. “Oh.”

(There’s a memory, somewhere, of a boy born more shadow than child who would’ve given anything to have someone that could stay. Who had resigned himself to living quietly alone, for months and then for years, until he offered an injured kid and the fire-eyed boy he was holding onto a home.)

“Always, you muffinheads. Always. That’s something you’ll never have to worry about.”

“But do you promise it? Do you pinky-promise it?” Sapnap holds up a pinky finger, and Dream quietly does the same. 

“I pinky-promise,” Bad links his clawed finger with theirs. 

Dream doesn’t look like he believes him, not completely—but when Sapnap grabs Bad in a sudden hug, and Bad holds out his arm for Dream to join in, Dream doesn’t hesitate. 

“Always, okay?” Bad says again, like the repetition will make it true. Sapnap holds on tighter. 

\------------

“Googgyyyy,” Sapnap sings. 

“Uh. What?” George lowers his bow, letting the nocked arrow relax. Sapnap is barefoot, which is a bit worrying—he should know better, especially when George is practicing—but it doesn’t look like any of George’s glass bottle targets have shattered too wildly, so it… should be fine. Dream follows behind, smirking, his mask hanging from around his neck—still a little startling, but George has been living at the ruins for a few months now and he’s starting to get used to seeing more of Dream’s face. 

“You gotta do the thing,” Sapnap bounces over, and yanks George down so they’re both sitting on the grass. Dream sits next to them so they’re in a little circle, tucking his knees under his chin. He winks, and his eyes are the same shade as the forest around them. 

“What—what thing?” George asks. 

“Y’know,” Dream stifles a laugh, “the thing.” 

“Okay okay okay. So. George. George Not Found. Gogy.” Sapnap grabs George’s shoulders and looks him right in the eyes. “Are we gonna be besties?” 

“What are you talking about?”

“Answer the question,” Dream pokes his shoulder. 

“Well—yeah, sure? Of course. Not like I have any other friends?” George stumbles over the words, but he thinks they get it. They usually do. 

(And for all that this—whatever it is—is lighthearted, there’s still something serious in Sapnap’s face, something about the way he’s talking that says it’s more than it seems. Something about Dream’s shoulder against his own tells him it’s important, even if he can’t explain why, so… he wants to do it right.)

“Good. Now.” Sapnap holds out his pinky finger, and Dream does the same. “Do you pinky-promise?” 

“Um—” George stutters. “Huh?”

“You put your pinky finger in,” Dream stage-whispers. 

“Alright,” and George does. Sapnap and Dream link all three of their fingers together. 

“There! Now it’s super unbreakable! We’re besties,” Sapnap laughs, and Dream throws up his hands and cheers. 

“Okay?” George still isn’t sure what’s going on, but he smiles with them anyway.

\------------

“Try again,” Bad pulls Sapnap up from the ground by his arms. 

“Oh I’m gonna,” Sapnap twirls his sword in his hand. Bad, smirking, flips his knives through his fingers, tosses them up in the air, and perfectly catches them.

“Show-off,” Sapnap scoffs. Bad just smiles, and then lunges forward in a move Sapnap just barely manages to sidestep. He slashes out with both knives and Sapnap ducks, swinging his sword up, but Bad just flips backward. 

“Nice going,” Bad instructs, “I left myself open. But you have to know your opponent’s strengths. Dream and I are agility fighters, you aren’t. Use it to your advantage.”

“I know,” Sapnap growls, and charges forward. He nearly catches Bad with a feint to the left shoulder, but Bad gets him to trip over his own momentum with some fancy footwork and he lands flat on his back. Again. 

“Close,” Bad gives him an encouraging smile, holding out a hand. 

Sapnap takes it, only a little reluctantly. “I’ll get it one of these days. That’s a promise.”

“You will,” Bad says. 

“You think?”

“I do.”

\------------

“At this rate, you’ll never get me,” Dream snickers. “You’ll just try, and try, and keep on trying, but you still won’t win.” The taunts are familiar. He’s cornered at the edge of a cliffside, but then again, he’s usually cornered somewhere during manhunt. He always gets out anyway. 

“Is that a promise?” Sapnap leisurely brandishes his iron sword, flipping it around in his hands. But the others are too far behind, and Dream grins. 

“Never,” he laughs. “It’s a guarantee.”

He lets himself fall backwards off the cliffside, saluting Sapnap as he goes, who just rolls his eyes. 

\------------

It’s an easy decision. 

The village is—well—it’s on fire. Horribly, desperately on fire. Dream’s ears are ringing but he can see villagers screaming as they run, terrified. One smacks into his shoulder as Dream runs in the wrong direction— _towards_ the pillagers. A little kid shouts something at him but Dream can’t hear it. The kid has blood on his face. They’re miles away from home, and Dream doesn’t know any of the villagers, but seeing the silhouettes of corpses against flames is almost enough to make him gag. 

(The fire isn’t anything like Sapnap’s flames. This fire is cold, in comparison. Cold, practical, ruthless, and cruel. It has nothing of Sapnap’s brilliance, none of his fury, none of his warmth.)

And it’s the easiest decision of his life. 

Because George is trapped, unconscious—half-buried under collapsed rubble when he tried to drag a shopkeeper to safety—and Sapnap’s been digging him out, Dream can see his bloodied, mangled hands. And Sapnap doesn’t see the pillager a few yards behind him, doesn’t see him raise his crossbow, and it is the easiest decision that Dream has ever made to run screaming at the man, axe held high. 

There’s no time for tricks. No time for fancy footwork or jumps or anything that he’s become so known for. Just Dream, charging headfirst, and tackling the pillager into the ground as he fires his crossbow. He swings his axe in a wide, furious arc, and slices it clean through the pillager’s neck. 

He stands, and looks back at Sapnap. Sapnap reaches for him with his torn-apart hand and he starts going fuzzy and gray and too late, Dream reaches for his side and his hand comes away slick with blood. Too late, he realizes he’s falling. 

He doesn’t even remember hitting the ground.

\------------

“Hey, hey hey—”

Sapnap’s voice, whispered and hoarse, hands fluttering around Dream’s face. He opens his eyes, and there’s Sapnap, always Sapnap, George on his back with his head hanging limply from one shoulder. 

“Stay with me, Dream,” Sapnap pleads, but his voice sounds like he’s talking through a wall, faint and far away, but he’s here he’s right here—

“Promise me you’ll stay alive,” he says, but Dream’s eyes flutter closed before he can answer.

\------------

Dream wakes up to the scorched skeleton of the village, still smoldering. In the cloudy dawn and smoke, everything is cast in a pale, dim light. 

He tries to struggle upwards, but a sharp, harsh pain in his side stops him—and so does a light, warm hand on his shoulder. Dream shivers. He hadn’t realized he’d been cold.

His side aches, now that he’s aware of it. Dull, but insistent. His mask is laying beside him, broken into shards. He’ll need to make a new one, and fast. Just the idea of having his face exposed while injured like this makes him nauseous. 

Sapnap looks down at him, and his eyes are the same shade as the ashes falling from the sky.

“Never, ever, ever do anything like that again,” he warns. “Ever. Got that?”

“No promises,” Dream smiles. 

\------------

The tournament referee places a medal around Sapnap’s neck, takes his wrist, and holds his arm in the air. Sapnap raises his other hand, still holding his sword, and cheers. From the stands, he can see Dream, Bad, and George screaming at the top of their lungs, waving their arms wildly at him. 

“I TOLD YOU,” Sapnap shouts at them, waving his arms back. “I TOLD YOU I’D DO IT, I TOLD YOU!” He laughs, pure excitement and glee and adrenaline keeping him from feeling the bruises scattered across his entire body, and the black eye he’s sure he has. 

He did it, he did it, he won it like he said he would. He did it. 

\------------

“I promise,” Bad says, over and over and over again, every single time he and Skeppy go off on their own and every single time he comes back, when he finds them wherever they are. 

Dream would be lying if he said he wasn’t… anxious. 

“I’ll see you guys again soon, I promise—”

_(I promise we’ll be right back—)_

Anything could happen. While he and Sapnap and George are off winning tournaments and killing monsters and burning down forests and saving villages and levelling mountains, anything could happen to Bad. 

But he always comes back. (“Always,” Bad says, thirteen years old and more sure of this than anything he’s ever been sure of before. “Always.”) 

Dream’s starting to get the sense that—that anything could happen to Bad, anything at all, and he’d still somehow find his way back. 

“See you,” Bad waves, heading towards the desert this time, while Dream, Sapnap, and George head for a snowy mountain range. “I promise we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“You’d better,” Dream calls after him, laughing, instead of saying _I know,_ or _thank you,_ or _I don’t know what we’d do if you didn’t._

“We will!”

\------------

Dream sits atop the stacks of bricks, ready for construction. Ready for the house they want to make, the first house they’ve had since they were little kids, the house they want to make perfect. All they’ve actually built on the lake so far is a simple platform, but—he can see it. See what this could be. 

“This’ll be home. And it’ll be a good one,” he says. 

“Is that a promise?” Sapnap comes over to sit next to him, brushing sawdust off of his hands. 

“You know what?” Dream chuckles. “Sure. This can be a promise.”

_(I promise we’ll be right back—I promise we’ll come back—I pinky-promise we’re best friends—always, always always—)_

Sapnap looks at him for a long, long time, and… and then he grins.

“This’ll be the best home yet,” he decides. “The best home that’s ever homed.”

Dream laughs. “We’ll make sure of it.”

\------------

“I’m sorry,” Dream whispers to Sapnap, in the middle of the night while George and Punz are out patrolling and it’s just them, in the darkness of the community house while they should be asleep.

“For what?” Sapnap mumbles. 

“All of it. All of this.” Dream tiredly gestures towards the SMP in general.

“We just have to get the war over with, and then it’ll all be fine again. Don’t worry about it.” 

“The home’s already gone.” Dream’s voice cracks, and Sapnap pretends to not hear it. “It’s already gone. We tried to make a good home but now there’s war and government and—and—it’s gone.”

“We’re still here, aren’t we?” Sapnaps asks. “We’re still alive and together. Good enough for me, y’know?” 

“I—I know. I just—thought I could make it different this time. Should’ve known better.” 

“We do make a habit of getting chased out of places, huh?” Sapnap laughs.

Dream smiles slightly. “Even when it’s our own land.”

_“Especially_ when it’s our own land,” Sapnap corrects him, and Dream laughs. 

\------------

“You see what I mean about promises, now?” Dream asks Sapnap, standing on the roof of the community house. The SMP stretches out before them, a jumbled mishmash of buildings and towers and farms cut out of miles and miles of forest. The black-and-yellow walls of L’manberg rise in the far distance, surrounded by blackened stumps and scorched grass and bright, new saplings. The Prime Path’s light wooden pathways wind through the whole thing, bridging over the lake and leading back to the community house. Back to home, for whatever that’s worth after the war. 

“Nah,” Sapnap shakes his head. “I think you’re just a pessimist.” 

“A pessimist who was right, though.”

“Nope, still wrong.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sapnap smirks. He holds out his pinky finger. 

Dream stares at him for a long, long moment—then sighs, and smiles. He links his pinky finger with Sapnap’s, who grins up at him. 

“Oh, shut up,” Dream laughs. 

“I didn’t say a word,” Sapnap throws up his hands. 

“You were thinking it.” 

“Oh, so thinking is a crime now? You gonna arrest me for having thoughts?” 

“I might!”

“Try me.”

**Author's Note:**

> always interesting to write in the mindset of young children, especially smart ones. they think so differently from teenagers and adults, and trying to strike up a balance between little dream and sapnap’s child mentalities and experiences beyond their years is v interesting to write. but also sad so thank goodness bad is here to give them hugs 
> 
> also I have so much more that I want to write for this series but I need to know if stuff like the dreamon theory is real first. please Ranboo and Dream. please. just a crumb of lore? please?


End file.
